The Weekend

by Bernhard Schlink, translated from the German by Shaun Whiteside (Pantheon; $24.95)

What do we want our terrorists to be like? asks Schlink’s stilted new novel. Graying, paunchy Jorg is released from a German prison after serving twenty-three years for murders and acts of terrorism committed in his youth. His doting sister gathers friends and former co-conspirators at a country house to welcome Jorg back into society. It’s a tense reunion: the former agitators recall how quickly they forgot “the struggle” and how easily they shed their lofty principles to become teachers, lawyers, dental technicians. Jorg faces a decision: he can lead a movement eager to take up his banner or embrace a conventional existence. Neither option is appealing, because Schlink has painted both Jorg’s acolytes and his aging friends as flat, self-righteous archetypes who moan platitudes for pages on end. Jorg’s decision, made at the weekend’s last breakfast, is a predictable one. ♦

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